Episode 292: Dropping the COM and Market Confusion re: CMT with Hallie Bulkin

Hello, friends, and welcome to episode 292 of the Untethered Podcast. This is your host, Holly Balkan, and we're going to talk about something that, you know, maybe at some point I will bring on one of my attorneys to dive into a bit more. But I really wanted to dive into two things. One, dropping my calm. Why I dropped my calm. Certified orofacial myologist. I am not one anymore. I haven't been since almost been a year. So I stopped paying for the membership back in, well, December 31st I guess is when it would have ended. Definitely by March. I don't remember when the renewal is. That's neither here nor there. We're going to talk about that and we're going to talk about intellectual property and like market confusion. Little disclaimer. I am not an attorney. I'm not posing as one. I'm not pretend, you know, I'm not pretending to be one. I'm not pretending to know everything on this topic. I'm just here to share what I've learned and to share my own personal experience. Experience as a business owner because I think it's something that is not discussed enough. And you know, there's always a business side to me. So we're going to jump in and have a nice quick episode covering everything that I just shared because I think they're all kind of interconnected in a sense. All right, so let's jump in.

Quick disclaimer.

All information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or.

Medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider.

Welcome to the Untethered Podcast.

I am your host, Holly Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway, tethered oral tissue and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest.

Posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart. Breathe through your nose.

Let's get started.

Okay, so first I want to talk about dropping the calm. I'm not going to spend too much time on this because I've talked about this on social media. I've talked about it on the podcast in the past. But what I want to say is that, you know, I spent a lot of money and time earning the comm. Now, some legal parties will tell you that you can't be stripped of a certification just simply from not paying your membership dues anymore. And so there has been litigation, there's been like a class action lawsuit against. I forget. And I've talked about this like maybe a year ago, I don't remember what organ, if it was chiropractors or it was some medical. A group of medical professionals that basically, you know, had a class action lawsuit against an organization who was tying a membership fee to a certification they owned. And so, like, when I give a certification out, not give it, I'm not just giving them out, but like when you get a certification, right from one of my two certifications that I currently offer in my business, there's no ongoing membership fee that you need to pay to maintain that. Now you do have to maintain CEUs. We have a tiny little fee, like it might be $50, I think, and it's no more than that. And I think it's every three years, possibly two or three years. Again, I should probably know these things, right? But you can always email my team. They'll tell you. And that's just to cover my team's expense of checking on what you submit to maintain your certification. Okay. And that's really just an administrative fee. We're not making off of that. That's hopefully covering the admin, you know, person's time. So. And that's really how it should be. Okay. And so the fact that an organization basically forces you to maintain membership dues on an annual basis just to maintain your certification, that that's. That's a very gray area. And some venture to say that that's not legal, but that is what the IOM does. So that's neither here nor there. That's their business. I'm now out of it. The reason why I dropped my comm was because the IAOM has shapeshifted quite a bit since when I first took my course and I joined and I got certified back in 2018. And I didn't like the direction that it was headed. It was not aligned for me energetically, it was highly misaligned. And I'm not going to maintain a membership of something or maintain a connection to anything that I feel is out of alignment for. For me, for my business, for those that I serve, for those that, you know, are in My communities. And listen, you may be a member of the iom, you may feel like you get benefit from it, and that's great. You do you. Okay. But for me, it was so far out of alignment that I would get this like, uneasy feeling in my body that just said, like, this is not okay. Like this is no longer aligned. And a lot of it had to do with the fact that there was a lot, and this is public information, but there was a lot of mismanagement, management of funds. There was the verbiage that was changed on the website where they basically removed SLPs and OTs as being feeding therapists. But they added the calm, which would mean that, like, people who don't have feeding in their scope, but that who can get a calm could treat infants and toddlers, which they can't. You cannot do feeding therapy if you know, or swallowing therapy if you are not properly licensed. And so there were just a lot of like, legalities that were not in line. That was a big issue right then. There was the whole feeling of just kind of. I don't identify as somebody who, like, is a member of this organization. Like, I have friends who are still there. I love them dearly, friends and colleagues. I respect their decision to stay. I don't expect anybody else to follow suit. But there was a mass, like, you know, movement, I want to say, I don't know, lack of, lack of better words, but a movement of a lot of SLPs leaving the IAOM for very similar reasons. Many of which used to teach for the IOM are now, and they're now out. Out on their own. And so there was just so many changes and so many things I tried. I stayed for a couple years. I got on town halls. I tried to voice concerns from myself, from members who were too afraid to speak up. And at the end of the day, everything is energy. And I decided this is not where I'm going to spend my time or energy anymore, because it doesn't. It's not serving me, it's not serving my patients. It's not serving. In my opinion, it's not serving my colleagues that are in the same, a similar boat. And it really. It takes a lot of guts sometimes, right, and courage to walk away from something that you've invested so much time and money into. But I will tell you, I am so much better off for it. I am. This year my goal was to focus on peace and calm. And I'm in that place. I cannot say that I was there last year. Last year things were still chaotic. And, and in December, I was like, enough is enough. Like, I need to change something up here. And so that was one part of that was one of the changes that I made because I was pouring a lot of time and energy into explaining to people what, what was not working over there and what we want, what changes we wanted to see. And it wasn't just me. There were groups of us and there, there are still groups who were advocating for this. I have chosen to remove myself from that and to remove the calm from my name because I don't want it connected to me. I don't want that energy tied to me. Now. If you occasionally see a C O M after my name, let me know. My team has done our best to scrub the Internet because again, you can't use something that you don't have any longer, right? So technically, while, like, legally it's okay for me to have the C O M after my name because we could argue that there's a class action lawsuit. You can't actually force somebody to give up a certification if the if be just because we're not paying a membership fee. But I was like, you know what they want? They want us to remove it. I don't want to be connected to it anymore. Let's just get rid of it. And so we've done our best to remove it from emails and my signature lines and everywhere, but I feel like, you know, every month, like, we'll sometimes go like, oh, oops, like we missed that one. Right. So we're still working on it. But, but yes, I wanted to share that. I wanted to kind of dive a little bit into that. Just very, not really too deep of a dive, but a brief little dive to explain, like, where I'm coming from, why I did that. Because I have had people going, didn't you have a calm? Like, why don't you have calm after your name anymore? I've had a couple of people ask me and I was like, let's talk about that. So that's number one. Number two is there is an organization that you all. If you've been following me for a while on social media on this podcast, you very well know this or other organization, the aomt, has been stealing my intellectual property. And this is going on a few, actually more than a few years now. It'll be three years in February, but it's been maybe like a little over a year or so since they've, I think, added it to their website. I'd have to go check timelines. Don't quote me on that, but it's creating market confusion. So we're going to talk about it again. And I have full permission from my attorney to do this because when somebody is basically posing as you and as something that is owned by your company, you have the ability to go out and make sure that the market is aware that that's not you. So what do I mean by that? We've received emails, you know, messages on Instagram, people reaching out to us and saying like, hey, you know, so if I take the course at the aomt, I can get your CMT certification, your certified myofunctional Therapist certification. No, you can't. So I don't know in the future if we are going to more fully open up the certification, the Miles certification, to other intro courses. As of right now, we have not found that that makes sense because, one, we're not auditing these other courses, so we don't know really what you're being taught. But we found that there are sometimes pieces missing in other courses, things that I included in mind. Sometimes there's fluff, and it's just a whole bunch of hours of stuff you really don't need in order to go out and have the foundations and know how to assess and know how to treat. There are other courses that are great, that maybe are a good fit to allow people to then enroll directly into the certification, the cmt. But I'm here to tell you that the course taught by the AOMT is not connected to certified myofunctional Therapists. They basically filed after seeing me, you actively use it. So I had first use. They decided to go ahead and file it on February 18, 2022, I believe it was. Yep. I remember that date because it was my daughter's birthday and I in. Or actually, I don't know if they filed it on that date. That was the date I found out. And I think it was either that day or that week. And somebody I know reached out to me and said I was in. I remember I was in Disney World and it was my daughter's birthday. And they reached out and they said, so are you on the AOMT board? And I was like, what? And I was like, no, I'm not on the board. I'm not. I have no connection to the aomt. And they're like, well, they just filed for like a, you know, intent to use your certification name. And I was like, they did what now? And here's the thing, right? I have other trademarks. I have other. I have another certification name. I've Got courses, trademarked names and things because people try to copy things, right? So this is why we've decided to do this. And that's intellectual property. I. I have been using that. I'm the first to use it. We did our research to make sure it wasn't being used. All these things that I file for, right. And so we were waiting till that summer, right? This is February 2022. We were waiting till that summer until we had enough people that had completed it, that had added it to their website to basically pull everything together and file for it because it's a stronger. You know, the word's not stronger really, but maybe you can file it differently and with more evidence, right. If you have a larger number of people who have gone through it and evidence that they're using the name and it's on their websites. And we wanted to give people time to get it added and all that fun stuff. So my attorney was like, look, like, let's just wait till summer once we have enough that have added to their site and that are using it. And you know, we can basically send that evidence into the USTPO when we file for the trademark. Fine, great. The certification. Trademark on all the fun stuff. Well, AOMT beat me to it, even though I was using it already. Now here's what gets interesting. I have learned this is not the first time that this organization has done this. I am not going to discuss anything else on that matter. That's not why I'm here today. But I just find it very dirty that an organization would do this. Period. Period. We teach this. We teach similar things. We have the same kind. Of course, we have this similar kind of certification. When I say similar, not meaning that they're exactly the same, but they're in the same specialty arena, right? So you're technically a competitor with each other, if you want to call it that. And I just think this is like, you know, instead of doing someone a solid, you're doing someone a dirty. So what do you do? Right? People have said to me, well, Hallie, what do you do when someone like, steals your intellectual property when they create market confusion? Here's the thing. Creativity, innovation, right? These things are drivers, things that like, drive progress forward, right? Intellectual property has become a. It's a very valuable asset that a person or a business can own. So I've spent a lot of time, money, energy into creating what I've created in my business, okay? And so when somebody infringes on your intellectual property rights and it creates market confusion, because that's pretty key. It could potentially damage your brand. And that is what I'm most concerned about. Because you know, I want to protect what I've built. I want to protect it for those of you who are going through certification, those of you who have, you know, become certified. And I will tell you, I solely own like I have the rights to the cmt to those letters after your name. They tried to file for that. I got approval for it. They did not. What is currently in question is the written out version of certified myofunctional therapist and that is what the AOMT currently has on their website. And I'm here to tell you again, they do not offer that. They cannot offer that. It belongs to me. And we are currently waiting for something to happen through the USTPO process because they refuse to back out. We've asked them to. We've had many correspondences over the past couple years and they're not, they're not budging. So. So it's been a very costly process for my business. And this is part of being a business owner and doing business is sometimes protecting your brand from people who want to just try and take from you. Um, but I want to, you know, I'm not going to break down the steps or anything, but I just want you to have a better understanding of like intellectual property and like how to recognize the market confusion. And then you know, you can always Google like steps to addressing intellectual property theft and you know what happens. I can tell you a couple of things that I've done as well. So in order to really understand electrical intellectual property, like what even is it? Basically it's, you know, the creations that you come up with, like anything you might invent, maybe something you write, like literary works or art, artistic works, could be music, right. Designs, symbols, names of things, in my case, right Images maybe that you've used in commerce. Like these are all these all fall under intellectual property and it's protected by laws and copyright like so those laws include like copyright law, trademarks, patents, trade secrets. There's all kinds of laws that like protect you from having your stuff stolen. Doesn't mean people aren't going to do it. And it's a very costless cost cost, not costless, costly process if you do want to protect it, if someone is trying to steal it. But that's why getting trademarked and putting a little bit of an investment up front because that's not cheap either can be really good if it's something that you know you are putting face forward. So the other Thing I want to say is the market confusion side of it, right? So this occurs when, when a consumer, when a person who is engaging with your work, you know what you're offering or they're your client, right? When they. Maybe they're not your client yet oftentimes they're not, especially if they're confused. They cannot distinguish between the two brands like the AOMT and me, Right. Due to similarities in branding, in packaging, in product offerings, in names that were stolen. And this can dilute the brand's identity and the brand's reputation and it can affect the bottom line. It can actually, because if people think that they're getting my cmt, when they go to their website, they're going to be purchasing their course thinking that the certification they offer is mine because I am the face of my brand. I am very face forward. A lot of people know me. I've had people come to me and actually ask and like confirm. And I'm glad they at least confirmed before purchasing. But we have evidence, we have evidence of this market confusion happening. And so it's really important to recognize when this starts to happen, especially early on, if you can, so that you can address the issue as soon as possible. Some of the things that you'll want to do is document, document any case that you have infringement that you notice. If you think there is a case, screenshot, put it in a file. I've had people use my MYO Method name and tell me, oh, well, it's not. This was a different individual. Oh, it's not, you know, I'm not teaching courses, it's just the name of my private practice. And I was like, okay, that's fine. And then that person started to do courses and study clubs and things that were absolutely an infringement on my intellectual property, on my name, the MYO method. And so, you know, for a while they stopped using it and then they brought it back again. And finally I just had to have my attorney send a cease and desist. Right? That's something you can do. You basically consult with an IP attorney, right? They will tell, they will advise you on how to move forward. And oftentimes sending a cease and desist letter is necessary to basically demand that they stop infringing on the unauthorized use of your intellectual property. Okay. And the letter basically is going to demonstrate to them that this is your IP and there are, there are legal implications for their actions. Most often times people will back off after that. Right. So it's not too drawn out of a process, especially if they're like, a smaller business or something or, or in my case, like with the aomt, they don't and they think I'm in a back down, which I'm not. We have plenty of evidence. So once we move to like the next phase, like, I have no doubt that we'll be totally fine. But you know, I don't want to move forward at the moment because we still have other options. But you know, there, there's various different ways that this can be dealt with. And so the reason why I'm recording, recording this episode and why I lumped this together, it was because it's all kind of related to many changes in the past year or so with me. But while I've pursued some legal action, you know, in, in what I'm, I haven't pursued legal action. I shouldn't say that. I've, I have an IP attorney. We've sent a cease and desist letter. You know, we are, we're trying not to have to pursue legal action. That's not fun for anybody, like follow a lawsuit, for example, because like I said, we still have other options right now that we're kind of waiting on. I need to educate my audience. That's a big part of addressing intellectual property theft. And that's what this is, this is theft. They have stolen my ip and I don't know why. It's again, not the first time they've done this to another organization. They have a history of this. But it's really important that you all understand that what I offer can only be purchased, can only be awarded. The CMT and the Certified myofunctional Therapist can only be given through my organization. Okay. Because by me educating you on this, my goal is to help mitigate further market confusion that they have caused and really reinforce my brand identity because I have worked very hard and invested a lot of time, energy and money in the past, you know, since 2019. We're about to enter 2025 soon, in the past five years and six years, you know, and it's, it's something that I feel very strongly about. And that's why, you know, if you can get out there and strengthen your IP protection, I highly recommend that. Because prevention, if you can prevent this from happening, it's going to be a lot less costly and time consuming. So make sure that you, you know, register things if you need to upkeep your registrations updated, you basically are trademarking things if they're important to you or something that you want to make sure you own the trademark on. You know, and so on and so forth, right? So while this can be like a super daunting conversation and topic, I want you all to know I'm okay. My, my clients, my customers are okay. Are intellectual property is okay. And I know in my being that everything will continue to be okay. But again, this is one of the topics that I don't think is really discussed much at all, especially in our industry. And I think it's important that if you have a business or you're creating something and you notice that people are copying it or ripping it off, document the infringement. Even if you're not doing anything with it right now, document it, because sometimes people delete things and then they'll do something later. And you want to have the history of the evidence if you're aware of it. But seek legal counsel. Definitely seek legal counsel. Be proactive about managing your intellectual property because it's important. If you're building a brand and you're investing with time, energy and money, it's important to protect it and protect your reputation in the marketplace that you're, you know, existing in. So I hope that that helps. Your IP is basically a reflection of you, the work that you're doing, all this time and energy you're putting into it, whatever you may be creating or innovating. Right? And. And that's why it's just as important, right, to if you quote somebody or you pull a research article or you take information that's not like common knowledge, that you cite it, right? That you say where it came from and who said that. If you don't want to cite a person, don't use their work. It's that simple. Right? So, you know, at the end of the day, we all have to defend what is ours with the diligence that it deserves. And that's truly how businesses both continue to thrive. And if you don't protect it, you're leaving yourself open, really, in ways that may not be great for business on the long run. So, you know, I'm just here to share with you what I've done to kind of bring this to your awareness and then also just to kind of let you know, remind you, right, that we are not the aomt. You cannot get the CMT or Certified Myofunctional Therapist Certification through the aomt. You can only get it through my company by going to the myomethod.com or hollybalken.com or if you're ever confused and you have questions, please do email us@support feedthepedes.com okay. So that's it. That's what I've got for you today. Like I said, I know everything is going to be great. I have worked very, very diligently over the past almost year now on finding peace in my life, finding calm, opening my schedule, like being able to not feel overworked and exhausted all the time and not feel like I'm trying to keep up with some rat race that might be like my various businesses. Right? And so, you know, when you deal with things like this, that it's sort of like, okay, universe, like, what are you, what, what message are you trying to send me right now? Are you trying to rock the boat? Are you trying to test me? And I've just come to peace with the fact that it's very easy to release a lot of, you know, like, I carry no stress around this at this point. A year ago, this would have really kind of ratcheted me up and I would have been really upset about it and just kind of, you know, in the feels just like, why would somebody do this? And why at this point, that's neither here nor there for me. I know in my being, I know full out that we own this. Everything's going to be okay. I will do what I need to do behind the scenes as a business to protect everything I've created, like I said, for my customers, for those who go through this. And I will continue to do that because I believe it's part of my identity. It's what I believe it's my job to do that as a business owner and as somebody who has brought forward this certification and everything else I offer. Right? And that is why I, I fight to protect it. Because, you know, you all listeners, those of you who, you know, invest in my programs, in my company, you know, to become certified or get trained in something, it's really critical to me that, you know, that you are. That what you're doing is protected and that it's legitimate and that, you know, we, at the end of the day will always fight for what's right. So that's what I'm here to say and to share. Now, you kind of understand why I dropped the comm, and you understand that you cannot get the CMT through the aomt, but that's it. Let's wrap this up. I will be bringing you all a fun episode next week that dives into. I believe it'll be next week that dives into a bit of what we've been doing with me and Lily and our, our allergy elimination treatment. So Stay tuned for that. It's it's coming. If not next week, it's coming up soon. Thanks for listening to this podcast.

If you found value in this episode and want to hear more of these Myotots, Airway and Feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer@halliebalkin.com or pop over to Hollybalken on Instagram to get all the latest updates.